Re: All the world is a stage; adult
There had been no education in acting, save the school of the wide, hard world. Gentlemen learned a single part, and the chameleon in the velvet chair had studied a plethora. The silk folded over in intricate arrangement at his throat was a bond of sorts, but meteoric rises were the prelude to the fall. Divas commanded as men did, but their power was false, paint and powder and at the end of the score they were silenced. This, the gentleman knew well. Galatea, he thought had tumbled and for this, he was sorry in a distant way that required no real investment in her outcome. He saw his own discontent mirrored in her, even if the pool was shallow.
There was a dressing-room beyond the drenched sunshine of the stage. It was confinement, a chrysalis for Madam Butterfly or Mimi, but its walls were hung with silk and there were crystal-cut vases full of flowers from adoring swains and perhaps that was enough for a woman prepared to learn to live like a recitation. Gilted bars still governed the breadth of the world for the birds contained within them. He did not mention it.
He watched her robing with none of the malcontent of the lover. His elbow was rebalanced against the arm of the chair, and his chin propped against his fist as he watched Galatea become again whoever it was she had been before the theater had made her in his image. His smile was thoughtful, the diamond still speared at his throat rasped against his knuckles.
"To be forgotten is a great skill," he said without amendment made to his clothing or his hair, save a sweep of one palm over the havoc she'd made. "It is safer, to be forgotten. You wish to be remembered by someone who adores, and I wasn't made for that."